Relations between language and cognition in native‐signing children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Two populations have been found to exhibit delays in theory of mind (ToM): deaf children of hearing parents and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Deaf children exposed to sign from birth by their deaf parents, however, show no such delay, suggesting that early language exposure is key to ToM development. Sign languages also present frequent opportunities with visual perspective-taking (VPT), leading to the question of whether sign exposure could benefit children with ASD. We present the first study of children with ASD exposed to sign from birth by their deaf parents. Seventeen native-signing children with a confirmed ASD diagnosis and a chronological- and mental age-matched control group of 18 typically developing (TD) native-signing deaf children were tested on American Sign Language (ASL) comprehension, two minimally verbal social cognition tasks (ToM and VPT), and one spatial cognition task (mental rotation). The TD children outperformed the children with ASD on ASL comprehension (p < 0.0001), ToM (p = 0.02), and VPT (p < 0.01), but not mental rotation (p = 0.12). Language strongly correlated with ToM (p < 0.01) and VPT (p < 0.001), but not mental rotation (p = ns). Native exposure to sign is thus insufficient to overcome the language and social impairments implicated in ASD. Contrary to the hypothesis that sign could provide a scaffold for ToM skills, we find that signing children with ASD are unable to access language so as to gain any potential benefit sign might confer. Our results support a strong link between the development of social cognition and language, regardless of modality, for TD and ASD children. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1304-1315. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Visible Social Interactions Do Not Support the Development of False Belief Understanding in the Absence of Linguistic Input: Evidence from Deaf Adult Homesigners

“…In a study of natively signing children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Shield et al (2016) found differences in results for Level 2 perspective taking: native-signing children with ASD did not perform as well on Level 2 tasks as did the typically developing native-signing Deaf children. However, the children with ASD did not show this difficulty with mental rotation tasks, which consider different perspectives of the same object, but without considering another person’s perspective of the object ( Table 1 ).…”

“…However, more recent studies suggest that using a visual language confers no benefit to signing children or to subsequent ToM development (Courtin and Melot, 2005; Shield et al, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesized that there would be no differences between the groups’ success on Perspective Taking Level 2 tasks.…”

“…Level 2 perspective taking abilities were tested using a procedure adapted from Reed and Peterson (1990) using minimal language/gesture with the homesigners and three-dimensional objects (e.g., Shield et al, 2016). Three familiar objects were included in our task: a toy duck, a mug with identifiable sides (a hand design on one side and a handle), and a toy truck ( Figure 3 ).…”

“…However, prior work examining these specific skills has tested deaf children in the context of an educational or early intervention setting, whether it be focused on spoken language, sign language, or both modalities. Thus, most deaf children in prior studies have been exposed to at least some language, intervention, and education (e.g., Peterson and Siegal, 1998; Meristo et al, 2007; Shield et al, 2016). …”

Can Computer-Assisted Training of Prerequisite Motor Skills Help Enable Communication in People with Autism?

“…Applied Behaviour Analysis [17] and early social communication intervention [18] are effective but not routinely provided in most jurisdictions as their labour-intensive nature presents an economic barrier. Sign-language training in autism seems not to lead to further language development [19]; rather, baseline verbal imitation skill is the major predictor of any language development beyond signing [20]. Typing, unlike signing, is asynchronous [21] and therefore can be less cognitively demanding [22]; it has spurred communicative development in some autistic individuals [23].…”